Kukla's Korner Hockey

In 2009, 46 players were invited to the Canadian men’s Olympic orientation camp in Calgary, but Patrice Bergeron wasn’t among them. Four months later, when the roster for the 2010 Olympic team was announced, Bergeron’s name was there, but a whole lot of other sure-fire, can’t-miss candidates had fallen by the wayside, including Jeff Carter, who’d scored 46 goals the previous year, most among Canadian-born players.

It is why on Monday, when Canada unveiled the preliminary list for the 2014 men’s Olympic camp, executive director Steve Yzerman was at pains to point out that nothing is for sure just yet. The preliminary evaluations began last year, but it will be a good three months into the NHL season before Yzerman and his staff commit to a final Canadian roster, leaving lots of time for the candidates’ stock to rise and fall.

As Yzerman pointed out Monday on a conference call with reporters, if every person in Canada put together a team of 25 players, there might be a dozen or so that they could all agree upon. The test for him and his staff will be to sort out the bottom half of the Canadian roster, where there are wildly differing views as to who should and who shouldn’t make the team.